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Kirk: Journalists Should Consider Their Own Safety

A second execution of an American journalist by Islamic militants has U.S. Sen. Mark S. Kirk (R-Ill.) calling for journalists to stay away from the region.

The group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has released a video purporting to show the beheading of Steven Sotloff, a freelance journalist who had been missing since August 2013. Kirk says the way to prevent this from happening is to stop journalists from entering Iraq in the first place.

“There’s a hope I would have of just drying up the supply of Western journalists,” Kirk said. “Just encouraging anybody who shows up there to leave so they’re not used as propaganda toys with their own heads.”

Kirk says the chances of any other ISIS captives being saved are “very little” and that families of those hostages should not expect that they will be released by the group.